|
2003-08-05 - 9:05 p.m.
I have two Stupid Customer of the Week Awards this week, to make up for my slacking. Remember a few weeks ago when I said I was going to post a Stupid Customer of the Week Award every week AND I was going to write daily entries? That was funny. HAHAHAHA. Obviously I have been slacking. But I have been slacking doing important things like actually writing short stories that I have sent out to various publications�okay, so I wrote one short story and sent it to a publication, and I also wrote a 250 words essay that I enclosed in an envelope with a precious $125 check and sent it away to a Win a House Contest that I have absolutely no chance of winning but was too enticing to ignore. Anyway. Second story should be ready to be mailed out tomorrow to an actual publication thus completing, for the first time, my vow to send two things out a month� And so, the Stupid Customer of the Week Awards go to...the man who asked, �How big is your 8 oz steak?� And, to the woman who asked, �What is the difference between the hamburger club and the turkey club?� In my world right now I am dealing a lot with men who are trying to get me to be their girlfriend. Which I find odd. Odd for many reasons. One, because shortly after I broke up with my ex boyfriend a couple years ago, the amount of men who were �after me� dropped drastically. That could have had something to do with the fact that I was on a very public year of chastity. But even after my year ended, when I started dating Eric, the amount of men asking me out was nothing like it had been in the past. I attributed that to something I was emitting, an, I am taken and very much in love so don�t bother attitude. And that made me feel good, that I was so in love with this guy that I no longer appealed to anyone else. Because in my past relationship I was always being asked out, always having men professing undying love for me and after I broke up with J. I realized the reason for that was because I was still looking for someone, the whole time I was dating him, the whole five years I wasn�t quite settled, wasn�t done looking and that was why men came onto me, because they could sense I was still, without knowing it, looking. And I�ll be quite honest, a couple of those men managed to swoon me enough to periodically break up with Jon and go out with them. I so desperately wanted to A. Be happy and B. Find an easy way to truly break it off with Jon. What I realized during my year of me (when I wasn�t dating and I wasn�t allowing anyone to have any sort of intimate relationship with me, including my friends) was that when I would break up with Jon I was hoping to fall madly in love with someone else, instantly, because that would surely get me away from him finally. Because I loved, love, Jon, he is an incredible person, there is nothing wrong with him, but he and I were not cut out to be together. I had turned into someone I didn�t like and I know I wasn�t making him as happy as he could have been. And in my mind, because I couldn�t really come up with a reason to break up with him, I created reasons. But it never worked; I would date someone else for a while, a month at the most and be right back with Jon. Anyway, the point of this story is that when I was dating Jon I was obviously flirting up a storm, making eyes at other men, inviting men to hit on me. So, when I started dating Eric and this whole year I have been with him, I was still not being hit on, I took that as a very sure sign of my love for him. I mean, I KNOW I love him, but I also thought I loved Jon (in a romantic way) so I sometimes second guess myself. Does that make sense? I mean, I thought I loved Jon romantically but it turns out that I never did, I loved him as a person, as a friend. I love Eric romantically, as a person, as a friend. And the fact that men didn�t come onto me anymore was solid proof to my over thinking mind that I was, am, indeed in love and content and happy. But then, a few weeks ago, it started happening again. The men with the moon in their eyes staring at me. Men asking me out, men coming out of the woodwork asking me to movies, to dinner. Men saying shit like, �Come on, let me be your part time boyfriend, when he�s not in the country boyfriend,� and when I laugh and say, �No, I am very happy and very in love with him and I don�t have any desire for a part time boyfriend,� the reply is, �You aren�t in love, you just think you are, you DO want a part time boyfriend, come on, it will be fun,� Seriously, that is what people are saying to me, like they can brainwash me or something. So with all these men coming around again, I got freaked out. Thinking that I must be putting out that same old signal I used to be so good at emitting. I�ve actually lost sleep over this. I was scared. Because WHY would I be emitting that signal again? WHY WHY WHY? I don�t want these men coming around. I don�t want to be hit on. But they are doing it anyway so in my head I am thinking that something is wrong with me, that I am somehow not being faithful to the boy because I am emitting those signals. But then it came to me, today, and calmed my nerves. Because I am so terrified of this. I am terrified of any repeat of my last relationship where my partner becomes distant and inattentive over time and I start hunting, searching for some attention. I am so terrified of this not being right because my heart is so deeply caught up with him. I want this to be right, I want to do everything right, to not screw anything up. I�m not worried about cheating on him, I would never do that, I couldn�t do that. But I am worried about anything changing because what we have now works so well. I am worried because I am obviously sending out some weird signal to men that I don�t mean to be and so that means something has changed because I am no longer sending out that �taken and happy� signal. But what that really is, I have realized, is not a signal, it is merely and attraction. Men are attracted to me again because I have once again gotten comfortable. I am peaceful and content. I have confidence again. I am rebuilt finally from the destruction my break up had caused my spirit. That�s why they are coming around again. Not because I am throwing them a lustful eye, but because I am attractive again because I have found happiness. People are attracted to happy people. People want to be with happy people. And I am happy. I smile freely now, I walk around with a peaceful glaze of love in my eyes. I am gentle and kind now where before, during those awful two years while I was recovering I was brash and reluctant to smile. And because I am rebuilt on the inside I am more giving to people. I am talking to people again, helping people again. Because I have soul back. That�s why men are coming around. And that�s okay with me now because I know the only reason they are coming around is because I have become a more whole person�and that is because I am in love with only one man and he is perfect for me. It makes me whole and it makes me beautiful. |
|
